It’s time for table talk: What’s the Prize for Food?

A casual look at the list of awards that culinary icon Julia Child garnered in her long life revealed three of particular interest: the US Presidential Medal of Freedom (the highest civilian honour for achievements in culture, politics, science, sports and business) in 2003 and France’s most revered awards – the l’Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur in 2000 and the l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1990.

Several other American or US based chefs have got those French awards and Dave Thomas, founder of the Wendy’s chain of burger joints, got the Presidential Medal of Freedom the same year as Child. And, among the many food professionals who have been conferred the Order of the British Empire are Jamie Oliver, Gary Rhodes, Heston Blumenthal, the Roux brothers, Cyrus Todiwala and more.

All these point to recognition by some governments that food is not only an art – on par with music, dance, theatre, cinema, painting and sculpture – it is also an important facet of a nation’s soft power. For, like other performing arts, food needs no language to convey its message. And it has an insidious way of winning over the toughest diplomats and negotiators, as many leaders will affirm.

Little wonder that even the nonepicurean socialist French president readily told a group of chefs of heads of state (one of the world’s most select ‘clubs’!) at a reception for them this July at the Élysée Palace that, “Depending on whether you bring pleasure to those you serve, they will leave a negotiation either happy or unhappy…Diplomacy is a lot more difficult, if you make a mess of the meal.”

It is not surprising that the French are very generous with official recognition of their gourmet power as practically every evolved nation has some way of honouring the men and women who sate one of humankind’s most primeval needs, with skill, creativity and artistry.

As the world has become more sensitive to the other aspects of human endeavour, food was bound to be given its due.

All except India, that is. For a country that is becoming very justifiably proud of its soft power, the establishment has not seen it fit to recognise the efforts of those who have contributed to popularising cuisine, not only abroad but – more importantly – within India itself. A trawl through the internet revealed only one food-related recipient of a Padma award – Tarla Dalal got a Padma Shri in 2007.

As the time comes round again for worthies to sit down and deliberate on who will get the Padma Vibhushans, Padma Bhushans and Padma Shris for 2013, the usual slew of ‘recommendations’ must be flowing in for doctors, educationists, social workers and civil servants, not to mention sportspeople, film industry stalwarts and artistes. But will anyone ‘recommend’, say, the legendary Chef Imtiaz Qureshi, whose Bukhara restaurant is arguably India’s best known restaurant?

Every part of India has people who have taken food beyond the mundane, who have researched and revived cuisines, who have popularised cooking and who have restaurants and chains that have become bywords in their genre. In stature they are no less than the great chefs, TV cooks, cookery book writers and restaurateurs that other countries have honoured. Yet, they go curiously unsung officially even as we laud ‘our’ chefs who win Michelin stars.

So far, despite their entrée into rarefied (dining) circles, chefs have not protested. Finally, Chef Hemant Oberoi, who has cooked for world leaders and corporate rajas, besides opening a slew of restaurants for his hotel brand, has recently written to the prime minister drawing attention to this lacuna. So far, he hasn’t got a reply. Maybe he should send a copy to the members of the Padma panel, to give them some food for thought.